Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . of the 3 hour, 46 minute, 59 second 12-chapter "Mascot Serial" version of THE HURRICANE EXPRESS would technically be qualified to rate or comment about this flick. (That's 13,559 seconds, for the mathematically challenged, like my sister.) For ease of reference, your twelve chapters (with their time splits) are: 1)The Wrecker (28:43), 2)Flying Pirates (16:35), 3)The Masked Menace (17:15), 4)Buried Alive (19:26), 5)Danger Lights (16:48), 6)The Airport Mystery (19:47), 7)Sealed Lips (18:19), 8)Outside the Law (19:00), 9)The Invisible Army (18:29), 10)The Wrecker's Secret (16:26), 11)Wings of Death (17:26), and Unmasked (17:45). As he doddered toward Oblivion, John Wayne campaigned desperately to eclipse the 259 feature film credits of his late henchman, Ward Bond. In order to inflate his work record from the 166 features on his filmography for this site (and all other credible listings) by another 94, Wayne counted each of the serials he appeared in (such as HURRICANE) as TWELVE feature film roles, rather than one (even though 11 of the chapters in each serial ran for LESS than 20 minutes!). Wayne also awarded himself a theatrically-released feature film credit for each of his TV situation comedy cameo guest bows, as well as counting coup every time he made the annual Oscar Awards broadcast as either a losing nominee or a seat filler.

John W Chance I own and have watched the Alpha Video feature version of the serial. The problem with feature versions of serials is that they leave out so much; a lot of them jump too fast leaving out details behind certain dialog or sequences, which makes them hard to follow; or else the back and forth nature of the action seems pointless and tedious. There are many, many examples of this such as "Planet Outlaws" the feature version of "Buck Rogers" (1939) "The Phantom Empire," (1935) "Dick Tracy Vs. Crime Inc." (1941) among many.The exceptions are "Rocketship" (1936) the excellent shortened first "Flash Gordon" serial and "The Lost Jungle" (1934), which is actually a real improvement over and practically a different film from the serial it came from.This one, however, is in the category of something you watch while you're doing something else. Although John Wayne has a few good lines, and seems to do a lot of the action stunts himself, the feature version really points up the weak nature of the story. The bad guys (including the underutilized Charles King) seem to want to spend all their time trying to recover some gold stolen from a train, the Hurricane Express.Watching this you think, don't these evil villains have anything better (or since they are villains, worse) to do? Well, while watching it, you realize that you do, but you may not have anything else planned. So let me give you some tips for things you could be doing while playing this video: Organize all the clothes in your closet. Go thru the week's mail and throw away the junk. Delete unnecessary e-mails. Pay your bills. Organize your video collection-- I do mine chronologically, but maybe you do yours alphabetically. File important papers. Lie on your bed and read something while you listen to the movie. Good luck! I'm sure you'll be able to think of something worthwhile to do while watching this version of "The Hurricane Express."

bkoganbing One caveat I have to give this particular review. I saw an abbreviated 80 minute version of this serial which was almost unintelligible to follow. Not that I think the full length version would have put The Hurricane Express right up in cinematic history with Gone With the Wind.John Wayne did three serials for Mascot and this particular one must have been edited down for a feature length movie to take advantage of his growing popularity in the Forties. The plot such as it is involves John Wayne as the son of engineer J. Farrell MacDonald who is killed in a planned train wreck. The mysterious guy doing all these wrecks is someone appropriately called The Wrecker. He's got one interesting gimmick, he wears incredibly life like masks of all the other folks that are suspected of being the Wrecker. Fools everybody of course until the Duke catches on.If this version of The Hurricane Express came out in the late Forties, what must John Wayne have thought when such things as Red River, Fort Apache, etc. were being released? The Duke must have shuddered.

asinyne I watched the eighty minute condensed version of this show and actually enjoyed it quite a bit. Unfortunately, the DVD i bought wasn't made from a great print(i would certainly buy a better one if could). Anyhow, it was a very fun trip back in time to the days when John Wayne was a young pup and Hollywood was becoming, well, Hollywood. As you might expect the condensed version was very fast moving and there were lots of stunts, some really scary, like when Wayne or a double jumps from a moving car onto a moving train. Yikes!!! You had to be crazy to be a stuntman back in those days. The story isn't really that much by todays standards but it makes for a pretty good little action film. The girl is cute and yeah I'm sure she and Duke probably saw some action between takes. Ha, why not? I'm sure that the entire serial would prob get boring so don't waste your time with that, the short version works really well. Hopefully you can get a better transfer though. Overall, this is a nice time capsule that takes you back to a earlier and more innocent America and Hollywood. If nothing else you might enjoy the vintage trains, planes, and automobiles. The DVD i bought included this movie and three more and i paid fifty cents for it at kroger. This movie was the second best behind Paradise Canyon which was a great movie and was made from a great print.